The Doe in the Walls
by Kasan Soulblade
Summary: A Wizarding photo of a doe, strolls the halls of Hogwarts like a ghost that was not.  One boy, wandering alone, grinds sugar against the canvas.  Thus invisibility is broken by a trail of sweet.  One discovery begs another, and what comes to light...
1. Intro: Playing checkers with ChessMaster

The Doe in the Walls

Introduction: Playing Checkers with Chess Masters

The silence was absolute.

And like all absolutes, it was flawed. Felled by the miniscule, the irrelevant, and for the smallest deviant it was unmade. Had he been awake he'd of spoken scathingly of absolutes. But for a time, lost in the gyrations made under a shut eye, he was not coherent enough to be scathing and thus bare facts bereft of acid were left to make the case.

Where there was life silence could not be absolute.

He breathed, stirred, dissolving this absolute all accidental. The sound of hands over clothe, of long nails scraping across sheets, he indulged in his most dramatic moment yet. A twist too convoluted to call mere tossing and turning took him and he flopped from back to side. Face obscured by long, slick locks, his expression twisted, threads of hair stirred evading scrutiny all accidental. Once flipped he curled, hands gripping shoulders, as if warding back blows, or perhaps a chill.

All the while, he was busy. In that eternal moment, that endless night, he read with fevered zeal, a script cast in darkness. Timeless yet timed, so assured the clock afar, ever ticking, he was immersed without water, drowning bereft of lake or sea. The play of words and images consumed him. In that span of dissolved consciousness he perused the shade cast by closed eyes as if it were gospel.

Thus, absolute was felled, and the silent was not so silent after all.

He moaned without waking. A pained protest that almost recalled him to the land of the living. Suspended between waking and sleeping, he twisted, reached with one hand. Gravity and the folds of a wound blanket brushing against his wrist consoled, confirmed…

And thus he was pulled under with only a sigh.

He fell back to nighttime habit, his reading of words without meaning. A smile curled his lips, not bitter, but heartfelt. A rarity whilst sleeping, an impossibility while waking. Lost in the moment… a fragment of precious eternity, he sighed. A folded bit the cloth, a ridge of wound blanket, the sensations summoned the facsimile of a dear touch. Such stimulus reinforced the walls which spared him the mundane insanity he called life.

One breath, another…

He tasted autumn, the only sound for him was the brisk snapping of leaves about his feet. The sky was grey, by not gloomy, for the sun hid behind a shroud of misty clouds. Turning grey to silver while on it's route. About them, still shrouded yet shedding, trees spilled scarlet and orange leaves like Gryfindor's let slip secrets.

He said as much, and she laughed, ribbing him for the jab.

Fair was fair and all that.

She hadn't left, despite his abrasive manner. She took his hand within her own, smiled her acceptance, forbidding his apology with the quirk of her lips and laugh.

"Please Sev, as if I _didn't_ know." Lily rolled her eyes. Then meeting his eyes she grinned shook her head with a shocking violence. For one moment her hair had looked molten in the fading light, then it was just a stinging, whipping blur. Sputtering he pulled back, refusing to release his hand in hers, and she laughed.

"Fair's fair, even if it's an act, it does hurt a little, you know?"

He grinned, conceding she had a point, and daring the lion's claws opened his mouth to offer the taboo. "Yeah, but it shouldn't, I'm s-"

"-a Slytherin," She chimed in, green eyes lit up with wicked mirth. "Well, what else is new?"

She'd never let him apologize, even when it was the right thing to do. She was strange like that.

"It's just an act, right?"

He smiled, just for her, shifting his robes of black and green about, and tightening his grip. Pulling her close, she humored him by drawing closer. His arms settled over her shoulders, her fingers forgotten for a while. Before them, empty and spacious, was a bench. Iron wrought, all edges curled and dulled, it screamed muggle. She didn't mind though, and in that moment, away from the others, neither did he.

"Did you bring _it?"_ She giggled.

The pack under his cloak clicked and rattled, he smiled, nodded.

"I love a good game of checkers." Lily enthused. "And against the best chess master in Hogwarts, I'll have to show of my mettle."

She slipped away, absently tugging at his back as she departed. The loosely bound straps came undone and he yelped, twisting and bent almost double to save the boodle from falling to the dirt. Giggling, apologizing (ever curious how she forbade him from doing so, yet indulged herself) she knelt with him, picking up spilled pieces as he dusted off the board.

"Sorry, guess that was kinda mean." Lily grinned, apologizing yet again.

To that Severus Snape shrugged, voiced his opinion on a pitch that was still high and boyishly pure. "Doesn't matter..."

"Does too."

"Does not!"

"Does too!" Lily growled.

"Well, umm… fifty points from Gryfandor than," She tipped her head, expression clearly asking who died and made him a professor. To that he smirked. "For being right."

"Shouldn't I be getting those points?"

"You did, it was a negative sum "given" to you and yours alone."

"Sev, stop twisting words!" Lily whined. "You don't _give_ negatives, that's just taking!"

Unsaid was the rather childish complaint of "that's not fair!" Not wanting to sink _that_ far Severus snorted, flipped open the chess board that would serve for their checker game. Between flipping it open, noting it's tarnished white squared and it's dust choked black and snapping it closed he was sitting. In that peculiar manner of dreams, the span between standing and sitting was bypassed and not truly remarkable.

Nor was it remarked upon.

Leaning against the blunted arm of the bench, one leg sprawled, the other tucked just so, Lily studied the board between them. He in turn, studied her. Green eyes intent, red hair framing her heart shaped face, only stirring when she tipped her head from side to side to help her thoughts along, she was clearly enjoying herself.

With him.

He smiled wide, wider than he'd ever had before.

The chess board and its black and white tabs divided them. It was an easily breached span that was bypassed when Lily leaned close to move her piece, or broken when Severus stretched forth a long fingered hand to skip over her pieces.

For a while there was only the click of tabs against the board, interspaced by the shy glances Severus spared his playmate.

"How's class been?"

Couldn't she ask something new? _Anything_ new? He sighed, smile faltering.

"I'm surrounded by dunderheads." Snape groused.

"Say idiots and it'll be plagiarism." Lily teased, green eyes twinkling.

He snorted. "Heaven forefend I _plagiarize_." The Slytherin drawled.

"Don't be _too_ mean to the first years." Lily counseled, grinning at him, a rather Slytherin grin truth be told… His heart quickened at the sight. "And maybe that elusive intelligence you're looking for won't be smothered out by sheer terror."

"As if anyone's scared of me." Snape grumbled. Picking up another piece he hopped over another of hers.

"Well, you know what they say about the quiet ones." Lily teased, and Snape felt his lips quirk into a smile, familiar only because it was with her. She took another piece and he scarcely noticed which one he pushed forward to counter her.

"What do they say, about the quiet ones?" Snape drawled.

"Dunno, they always cut it off at that point."

Looking from him she looked down, then laughed with true delight. Not rare, not from her, but precious all the same. Then, picking up one piece, she merrily hoped over five of his. He looked down, mouth sagging open, then looked up at her.

"I won!" She cheered, meeting his gaze, still enfolded in her private delight tossed out a casual. "Two knuts please!"

"We.. I... I never agreed-"

She thrust out her hand and he sighed, poking about in his robes looking for pockets. Realization met, he flushed, lifted his gaze once more. Some of the delight faded from her, understanding took cheer's place.

"How 'bout a chocolate frog?" He hedged.

She nodded. "Sure, but only if we share."

He could go with that. Nodding he pulled out the battered box from his robe pocket. Her delight returned, she loved chocolate frogs, he did too but not quite as much… Plopping the box between them she took one side, he another, and the item safely between them he reached for the lid. Curious the frog hopped without being opened. Causing the paper lid of it's binding to bulge most alarmingly; it fought for freedom with a thud more suiting...

More suiting a fist against wood…

"Sev?" Lily queried, suddenly scared.

_Thud_

_Thud_

He fought, held to the precious moment, using tricks taught be the various mind games he'd learned over the years, he turned them outward, striving to cut off the real. He tried to smile as he had before. Reclaim the memory.

But the flaw was there, the moment unraveling, eternity was passing them both by.

He knew, she saw, and for seeing she reached for him, hand closed over his wrist.

"I have to go." Severus whispered bitterly.

"I know, I miss you too."

He snorted and she looked hurt, but there was no impulse to apologize, not now, not ever again.

He stood, the sky a greying blur, the leaf strewn earth a riot of cliché hues that those who liked to pain would ascribe to an autumn watercolor. Save for the abundance of water, the colors blurred under the salt sweet assault.

Her colors blurred, joined the masses. Her distinctive lines a memory, only her hand remained clasped over his.

"Severus?"

He waited.

"Please, look with both eyes open, please."

"I always do." He sneered.

Did she smile? There was a flicker of white, lost under the conjoining of hues. As was her grip, a memory but not. She'd never been this desperate, not ever, not with him.

"Not always, not in this. Just, _please_…"

_Thud_

_Thud_

From a world away, that hated world, Fitch's voice sounded. "Professor, we've gotta problem!"

Before waking, that mental dawn, her hand was back, she had no voice, only a touch, and in that moment he heard her again, in his heart, her plea.

_Please._

His eyes fluttered open, both eyes split from considering fanciful hues etched in the dark of his eyes. With a groan he found himself staring at the gloom enshrouded ceiling.

He was back, his quarters, the dungeons, Hogwarts.

Damn it all.

"Professor?"

With a snarl Severus fought to sit up, straggled to his feet. Forgoing shoes he snapped up the robe he'd left by the bed side. It hung over the back of the chair like a black ghost of guilt. Pulling on a robe as he went, thoughts of murder and UnSpeakables prominent in his mind, Snape scrambled to the door.

Fitch was knocking at his door, never a good sign. The hour, quick glance at the clock as he struggled with an arm hole allowed him to confirm it, was midnight. Either this was a harbinger of the end of the world... Or if it wasn't it would be the end for _someone_.

Snatching the door handle, twitching his robe in place in that final moment, he pulled the portal wide, venomous glare saying all that needed to be said.

"Profess.. We… that is… Students out in the halls, missing…"

"Who?" Snape snarled, thoughts idly considering some rather vile UnSpeakables to use on the perpetrators. Exploding entrails, blood fire, perhaps a flaying charm…

"Potter."

Definitely a flaying charm then.

"One moment." Snape hissed. He'd need that moment, to gather his composure, find his boots, and perhaps gain a little sanity before it all went merrily out the window.

"Bu-"

Not wanting to hear anything else, Snape slammed the door in the old man's face.


	2. CHapter one: Letting there be light

The Doe in the Walls

Chapter One

_A/N: Sorry for taking so long, I've been suffering from writers block, and sick besides, and haven't had much energy for updating. Anyways I'm feeling a bit better, so I'll be updating hopefully with some regularity._

"Lumos"

Thus light was born, by command. A page stolen out of classic Muggle mythos. He smirked despite himself, taking dry amusement in the wry. And was confronted with a symphony of complains.

"How dare he!"

"I'm ruined! Ruined I tell you!"

The uproar carried on. The very gloom of the night bound castle quivered as the accumulated mass of irate teachers, prefects, and headmasters carried on in a chorus of tinny voices. The words were irrelevant. Not one bothered to describe their... assailant… so Severus simply toned out the babble and toyed with temptation.

One word, one motion, and if that word was "Nox" the light would fail. Darkness would coax the older of the portraits to slumber, and a few syllables would mute the younger.

Oblivious to his companion's turn of mind, Filch hobbled towards the nearest painting. Mrs. Noris was ever at his feet, her tail coiled in a serpentine inquiry. Curiosity overriding caution, Filch slid one digit across an old oil painting. Glittering and white, whatever it was crusted about the old man's finger, the most pristine part of him. Lips curled into a sneer Severus almost said something about wizards who acted like Muggles. The cutting comment about idiots who never studied potions also teased his tongue, but unable to decide between the two he hesitated just long enough…

Setting the digit to his lips Filch sucked the stuff of his finger, then blinked.

The Potion Master's mouth sagged open, or would have had he been one to show the shock he felt. He flinched, then set himself for waiting for anything. There were five powders Severus knew of –two lethal, one known to cause warts and was contagious besides, another a laxative of near lethal proportions, and the last was simply a cooking confection- that looked like… well… exactly like the substance Filch had just carelessly consumed. One breath, another, and idiocy compiled upon stupidity before Snape's wide eyes. Filch swiped up another nip of the sample, sharing the second take with Mrs. Norris before taking the lion's share for himself.

Oblivious to the potion master, who was softly strangling at the idiot's audacity, Filch smirked. Not content to smile at the indignant painting, Filch turned about and looked at the stone faced professor with said smirk in full attendance. He also flashed his rotting teeth in a grizzled smile.

"Sugar."

As if that explained _anything_. Still, he wasn't... what he was… for no good reason. He put the pieces together in a second, and grimaced at their juvenile feel.

"You woke me… at midnight… to inform me that a student was smearing sugar on the paintings?" Snape hissed. "This was your… your… _emergency_?"

"Well, that and the whole Slytherin common room was transfigured pink. Potter's not the only one missin' you know. But considerin' you have it bad for the boy, meaning him ill and all…" The old man grinned. "Well, let's say it's as one friend to another I'll help you out."

As one friend to the other… Hardly that. Snape sneered at the older man's audacity. Unfazed Filch grunted off the familiar show of hostility, retreating into his familiar irascibility. Friend's had common interests, but the only common ground between the two men was a perverse pleasure in breaking fools of dreams and delusions. That and breaking students, making them cry.

Still flashing that rotten smile, Filch chuckled as ugly a sound as the man was himself, bent over and picked up something from the floor Snape had missed. A hair, black and brittle looking was pinched by those filthy fingers.

"Potter's quite the shedder."

Snapping up the offering, Severus snarled, black eyes sliding half shut, intensifying the hell pit qualities to maximum effect. To that show of genuine awfulness, for that viewing of something much darker than mere petty dislike for everything and everyone the old coot shuddered. And with that motion lost his nerve. Studying the stones, wondering what line he'd inadvertently crossed, Filch called to Mrs. Norris, and both and and feline left without another word.

Alone, save for the babble of the animate inanimate, Snape lifted his wand. Studied smear and background in a shimmering light that forbade comparisons to torches, lanterns, and brands simply by its unearthly qualities. First left than right he swept the light, then he stopped. Spying something… most curious.

A hoof print. Or rather, debris left by a hoof, the shape of the mud splatter with its crushed grass alluded to so much more. Studying the green-brown smear that was so out of place against a painting that was set indoors Snape wondered.

And peculiarly, he worried.

"Lil'?" He breathed the name.

The painting's subject, ignored by him, came to life. She'd never left her painting, simply had been ignored, and she wasn't content to be so any longer. The matron captured in the canvas glowered at him, bushy brows met in a fierce frown that would have spooked students a generation ago.

"I'm not your precious little Lil!" She snarled.

"Indeed." Snape swallowed, pulling back a bit, not startled, hardly spooked. "You aren't. Nox."

And, with light's fading, there was dark, an blessedly at the heels of that gloom came silence.


	3. Chapter two:  To Breathe

The Doe in the Walls

Chapter 2

To Breathe

A moment, precious, precarious. The stillness greeted him, broken only by the shiver of his robes and the trivialities of living that divorced himself from mute existence of the walls about him. Here, in this span between his office and the class… He lingered. Taking in the quiet, he lingered over the most basic pleasure of all. That elusive sense of simply _being_.

There was no titles for him than, no guises, no roles.

Just a moment, one breath, then he was recalled the foremost of his charades as the silence was broken from the other side. Voices and the familiar clatter and scrape of the oncoming horde. Book bags were carelessly thrown to the floor, never mind the precious literature between the tattered pages that took the beating.

Lips twisting into a sneer so familiar it had become trademark amongst the stupid crush of colleagues, acquaintances, and the like, Severus Snape applied this most familiar mask. There was no ribbon to hold it in place, no porcelain with death's face engraved upon it to press against his own. Still, the edges bit, as all unfitting facades did.

Gripping the handle he pulled open the door, a Professor once more.

XXX

Pink did not compliment red… despite what the romantics said. Nor did it fittingly belong besides gold, which was a regal color. Pink at its gaudy heart was ever frivolous, ever irritating. It also went without saying that pink did not under any stretch of the imagination belong next to green, and it was proven throughout the day that pink did not go with black.

As for cliché sayings about black going with everything… well it didn't, and a permanent sneer had anointed his face as he looked upon his feathered Slytherins and seethed.

Potter hadn't been the only one out of rooms that night. Merely a distraction, and Filch, the fool, had fallen right into it. Dragging Severus down with him. And while the prank had a certain cheek it also held a subtle layer of complexity beyond Potter and his two little friends.

Thus, despite how much he hated the boy, Severus was well aware this was not the child's fault.

Not directly, anyways.

It took effort, godly effort, but he did _not_ deduct points from his own house as the last of them left for the day. Losing feathers in a fuchsia trail, the additives that adorned his whole house were woven into big peacock tails that absently swept the halls. And no one had been spared, no one. Not the first years still wide eyes with wonder over their assimilation into the Serpent house, or the weary seventh years that held ambitions beyond the walls of Hogwarts.

To say the least… he was quite vexed.

Slytherins were supposed to be the cunning of the cunning, not oblivious incompetents, and every class that had shuffled out, pink feather in full attendance had shown him how much work he had yet to do. As for the Lion's house... well he'd helped himself and bestowed a blessing of negative numerals on the Gryfindors.

Lily would have killed him. Her rebuke rang in her ears.

_Call it what it was, deductions, not blessings. Not a gift, but a taking._

Honesty had been a sore point with her. She'd not have minded him his irritation at the prank but even the most subtle nascence of this self-deception would have irked her. She'd hated his word games, loathed any lie, and in part him and his sly Slytherin tongue.

Taking a deep breathe he mastered his irritation with effort, and as the door closed and caused a cluster of fluttering fuchsia to spin about he flicked his wand. A few choice syllables and the leavings of his disgraced house were just a memory.

Damn the Gryfindors, damn the whole house. He hadn't been able to get _one_ lesson without contamination running amuck in all the student's potions. He'd had to stop all brewing and teach from the text book, ordering them to recite the steps of each potion and mime the motions of the stirring because –especially amongst his later year students- contamination was the same as death.

So he'd paced up and down the seats, face a rigid mask of frustration, hoping, waiting, for one of them to crack. Point loss had run amok, and he was sure at the teacher's dinner he'd be given hell for his actions. If not from Minevra, than Dumbledore. For weren't the adults of the Lion's Den unaccountably brave, one and all? Pride more than wit would carry them towards the confrontation they so obviously felt would be "necessary". At least the heads of Ravenclaw and HufflePuff would not feel it necessary to address him when he was in one of his darker moods.

Nor would they confront him over his temper or indulge in the crass stupidity of trying to coax him out of a rage.

A room away, unseen but not unfelt, the time ticked by. Ten more minutes hung between this moment and that span he'd have to leave. He'd be called out if he didn't take the usual route up the moving stairwells to the great hall.

The chair of Slythrein head of house could not be empty after all. Frivolities of temper aside. He had a duty, many many duties. And he'd never be allowed to forget it.

A moment, a breath, he sought calm and fell so bloody far there were no words. Hands shaking, he let out a wordless hissed a curse. An Unspeakable made unspoken, so slurred it might as well have been parsletongue for all its incoherence, incoherent for all his rage…

Images, disjointed but bound by expectation, flashed through his mind in pace with his long hurried steps as he chased nothing and ruminated over everything;

_Albus, smiling, an offer of a lemon drop dribbling off his lips._

_Twinkling, always bloody twinkling, miming that damned concern that was damning for its lack of substance._

A saying: _Words were after all, only words. _

_Sticks and stones…_

_..and broken bones._

Damn it all. He swept from the empty class room, slamming the door behind him. Starting the long journey up from the dungeons to the great hall. Duty was duty after all, and he could not leave the seat of Slytherin unmanned. Not now, in these dark times. Robes billowing with that absent grace that so entranced the dunderheads and the masses he swept up the stairs, content to broil in old hatreds of his private storm.

One hall, before the Great, and something caught his eye. Glistened, piled, he stopped, noting the miniscule and its glitter.

Piled before the painting, barely a pinch worth's of height to its name, sullying the grey stones was a span of white. Curious he drew near, daring he knelt, a whiff later and he frowned. Sweet, cloying, an utter confection.

Once an oddity, now fast becoming familiar

Sugar, not granulated this time as before… but powdered.

Daring he picked up a sample, texture confirmed olfactory analysis. He ignored the temptation to run the fragment over his tongue, to prove the obvious, instead he looked up. Letting his cache drop.

And he wondered.

A smear of white, a naturalist painting that wasn't still. Never still, since it was a wizarding work. Grass and trees cast in hues compared to autumn by the multitudes so often they were cliché. There was no subject beyond the ordinary. A breeze captured on the canvas set the leaves upon the fabric to shiver and shake, but falling was forbidden.

And atop that, never by accident, was a smear of white. A span of sweet set to entice… something… on the foreground. Something that wasn't there. But something _had_ been there; recently. Fall brittle grasses were smashed to the right, paralleling the smear was a span of churned up leaves and scarred up ground.

He bared yellowing teeth in what was not a smile, certainly not that. But his blood was up, his curiosity aroused like an irate serpent, and his wand hand clenched under the pressures of a habit decades old.

Severus Snape was a source of mystery, hate yes, but mystery. From motive to each and every thought he was never to illuminate, only to obscure, such had been his role and inclination. But he'd never meant to be caught up in a mystery of his own, no matter how pedestrian.

But he was caught, even as he straightened, and smoothed his robes he knew this simple truth. He'd been caught, by nothing more than a mark, a smear upon canvas, and the coiling ruminations of his own curiosity. Hands loosening on the black fabric Severus grunted, and though he was alone he did not allow himself to openly ruminate, simply turned on his heel and swept to the Great Hall. The flare of his own private storm dimmed, but never dulled.

Never that.


	4. Chapter three:  The Forgotten Art

The Doe in the Walls

Chapter 3

The Forgotten art

A/N: Hmm… Is anyone even reading? Well I'll continue regardless but I'm still a bit surprised at the lack of comments… Hopefully I haven't' scared too many people off.

Arms folded before him, glasses askew, the pride of Gryffindor's tie was undone and draped over the crook of his arm like a forgotten battle banner. As for the remnants of the field. All were blockish, square, and monotonous on subject. So much so it nearly seemed conspiracy. Turning away, leaving the boy to stupid dreams of flight and fancy, or perhaps with more accuracy, a fancy of flight, Severus sneered.

The titles were all suited to a first year Hufflepuff more than anything a Gryffindor would peruse.

"_Magic and Creatures, can one exist without the other?"_

"_Oddest Familiars of the 1800__th__ Century and their impact upon History."_

And so on and so forth.

The authors were a blur in his scrunched up eyes, his opinion of the texts and their contents expressed with a jaw gapping exhalation. Clicking his mouth shut so the teeth grit (a not too uncommon state with Potter... or any Gryffindor about really) so not to be inspired to more laxity by the brat's unconscious state, Severus stepped about the comatose brat. Black robes billowing.

As his shadow's passing touched the child's face the once smooth features crumbled under the force of budding nightmare. A moment later, one turn and Severus wrinkled his long nose. Now safely embroiled in the familiar company of the student allowed potions section he snorted.

Wondering at the whiff of garlic that tainted the air.

Behind, beyond his consideration, a child whined in his throat, and all without waking rubbed at his most particular scar.

Mind on other things, Snape flipped open the text of choice. Last class of the second week and already a cheeky "what if" question had been tossed his way. The house in question was Ravenclaw born, -not Gryfindor know-it-all, his malicious manner had put a stem in _that_ particular problem for the time being- and while he'd have dismissed the query, the girl had quoted a book he _hadn't_ had to write corrections for as a child just to make it through the class sane. Recalling the third year Ravenclaw's question –her name beyond him just then, she wasn't one of his Serpents, therefore she was irrelevant until proving herself otherwise- he'd made an effort to slap her down in front of her peers. Not harshly enough to earn rebuke. Not to the point of driving the brunette to tears. He'd held that much restraint…

But his cutting remark about questions being best suited to the span allotted between periods so not to waste people's time in class had been malicious enough to set all his Serpents to grinning.

Severus Snape flipped through pages, not really seeing the words, just a line of beaming faces that shouldn't truly have been taking pleasure in what they did. Heaving a sigh, as if bored by the tedium of it all, Severus concentrated and the black of text overlapped the white of remembrance.

He could brew these potions backwards and have them come out in working condition. While a remedial text, it was a useful thing to read as it was a collection of fool proof –though limited- brews. While slogging through the simplicity one could actually –if they kept their eyes open- winnow out of the basic shows of cause and effect and figure out the reason behind _said_ cause and effect. Flipping through the _p's_ in the index he backtracked to the section… the supposed flaw that had led to… well not a _confrontation_… but a thoughtful question within the room of idiocy. He slowed his page turning...

Slowed, then stopped, as the numbers aligned.

The question had been beyond Slytherin and Ravenclaw ken. Beyond his really, and that had rankled more than having the pride of his Slytherin's tarnished. But, now, with the appropriate segment in hand he smirked and nodded, resolution reached.

For him, at least, that nagging raised hand that he'd hauled about in his mind had lowered at long last.

_Would it be possible to, with the samples of more than one person applied to the Precipitous Polyjuice Potion instead of the regular Potion that safeguards against it… would the latered Polyjuice allow you to make a seemingly "new" person possessing a mix match of both sample's features?_

Hours late, but at long last, Severus chuckled, skimming through the pretentious warnings about imbuing Polyjuice and read the text below the directions. The smile slid off his face, quicker than butter drizzled off of a scalding hot skillet.

_While theoretically possible it has never been successfully been done._

Taking the text from the top, his arm twitched as discomfort's ghost took hold. Grimacing at the reminder of punishment's past for merely _thinking_ Muggle, Severus slowed his feverish pace or perusal. He snarled as the unsatisfying text assaulted his eyes again.

Snapping the pages shut, he tucked the book under his arm, and wending past an awakening Potter marched up to the startled looking Pince. Two steps and the boy was bypassed. Still those two steps told tales. The boy's glasses were on the table, the child muzzily rubbing his eyes, clearly not quite with the wizarding world. A yawn that turned into a squeak as realization that the _most hated professer ever to exist_ had just ghosted by came too little too late.

The thud as the boy fell out of his chair, having tried to stagger back in shock whilst sitting drummed up an ever so slight twitch to Severus' lips, even as he confronted the skinflint that Albus had designated as a librarian.

"I need to check out a book." The Head of Slytherin drawled.

"Two weeks" Came the grunted reminder.

Raising one black eyebrow, Severus coughed. She was an old witch, with bad eyesight and a faulty memory, perhaps she'd honestly forgotten. "Madam Pince, I am hardly a pupil any longer..."

"One week."

Clearly she hadn't.

Trying again, summoning up a grimace of a smile that served him when he was trying to be charming, Severus checked the snarl that wanted to surface by mere centimeters.

"Certainly you can't still be holding against me… that incident?"

Where' he'd burned a rather distasteful potions' book so chalk full of errors it was a danger to life and limb to even the most competent. So ineptly written it had been recalled and the drunken scoundrel who'd penned it had been hexed off this mortal coil after a few months of howlers had come his way.

Said incident had happened almost twenty years ago, it was a long time to hold a grudge, and while he couldn't truly talk about that...

"Four days."

Clearly forgiveness was a forgotten art. Heaving a soft sigh, really, truly wishing to scream, Severus took his losses and the book and just got out.


	5. Chapter four: Minus the Horse

The Doe in the Walls,

Chapter 4

Minus the Horse

A book lay before the boy, pages yellowed, worn. Dog eared, disgraced, well worn, the state of the text was all these things. Hardly school issued, a bright red bar upon the spine with black numbers hovering above the crimson bar marked it as library book. It brazenly declared its date of return to any teacher about.

Blinking, the after burn of two days throbbing behind his eyes, he turned away, ghostly numbers flashing like misplaced stars with each blink.

As for all the mundane details of the boy's perusal… he snorted at the recollection. Snape would concede it was something else to see a Gryffindor _read_ of all things… Whatever it was must have been irrelevant, a fiction of sorts popular amongst the intellectually inept for the title had flaked away by the monotonous passing of centuries and enthusiastic fingers thumbing the spine. Flipping through the pages, oblivious to his audience of one, the child's black head had been studiously bent over something he shouldn't have bothered studying. Something outside curriculum and undoubtedly worthless.

All but wrapped in his fond delusion, Severus adjusted his thoughts into the familiar patterns of scorn and ridicule. And in a motion as absent as those he'd smooth the front of his robes, Severus' lip curled into a familiar sneer. Cloak and robes whipping about him as he went on his way, he set his mind to other things. Thoughts of potions and the experiment that awaited him that very night warmed his heart with lukewarm satisfaction.

Not enough to quirk his lips into a smile that had been so adored by green eyes… But his amusements these days were never enough to call up any type of smile. Cynical or pure, he _never_ smiled. Thus assured, the Potion Master went on his way, embroiled in his absent melodrama.

The thought, the _urge_ that had driven him out here, his own book in hand, was safely forgotten. Pushed under shields familiar but not worn by use. Pride pushed the screaming facts under before they could breach the liquid bounds of subconscious and be realized. All his plans of seeking solace under the branches of a familiar tree, _their_ tree which faced the lake and was therefore best by far, were more than forgotten. His undoing; distraction. Pure irritation at seeing Hogwarts star celebrity under said flora specimen, hogging the whole bleeding place for himself and therefore ruining it for one and all.

Or rather, ruining it for Snape.

Lifting his head, slow, surely, Harry didn't turn. Daren't turn. Least the fearsome black blur at the edge of his sight catch sight of the motion and whip about, detentions and point deductions spilling past his lips but with a look that promised wallops or _worse_. All engulfed in the flapping of its own robes (so like a bat, especially when viewed with a myopic eye) Snape never noticed the boy's lifting head, or wondering frown.

It might have been the light off the lake catching his eye, but for a second, just one moment, he could of sworn he caught a flicker of a grin about the man's lips. That was before the castle's residential bat whipped about; back mute but stiff and screaming indignation for… whatever.

Maybe the twins were right. Maybe when the wind turned Snape's bad mood became worse. Maybe, in the end of it all, after Snape's mood traversed the beaten path from worse to worsest _all_ would be given detentions and all the cheer of the world would be dried up under those glowering black eyes.

Forget Vampire, Ron's older brother George (or maybe it'd ben Fred, you never could be sure) had whispered after the feast to a gathering of wide eyes First Years, Severus Snape was the seventh horseman of the apoc- _whatever_ it was.

Minus the horse.

Looking about, sure the professor was really really gone, Harry cracked a grin, a wide grin (not his widest, never that) and giggled. Heck, forget _horse_, Snape could just mosey down to Hagrid's and get a… a _dragon_ likely and end the world atop that.

Giggles became laughter, real laughter; loud laughter that he didn't have to fear Duddly or Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would overhear and squish out of him. Figure that's when Ron came about then, blue eyes wide and guileless, red hair flashing in the dying light of day's end.

"What's so funny, mate?"

A workable "Nothin'," was squeaked out amongst the sniggers.

"Well, whatever, but…" Leaning close, the perfect picture for eager (Webster himself would of snatched Ron then, and taken his picture for the illustrated version of his next dictionary). "Did… did it work?"

Setting aside his book, The-Boy-Who-Lived smirked, and pulled out the item in his robe pocket for all to see. Hardly perfectly formed, white, and bulbous –if a mite mashed on the leeward side- Harry tossed it up and down. The garlic smacked into his palm with a satisfying sound.

"And… and he didn't come, ran and all that?" Ron queried.

"Yep." Harry confirmed.

"Blimey, he _is_ a vampire! Figure we could make potions easier if all us Gryf's go to class with garlic and all?"

"Dunno." Harry shrugged. "But it's worth a shot."


	6. Chapter 5:  Ritual

The Doe in the walls

Chapter 6

Ritual

Potions thrummed through his mind, a heartbeat to the hiss of synapses cloaked by white of bone and dark of the internal. Ingredients and clause chased cause and compatibility, the subtle dance was bound by the delicate web of motion. Half dreaming, half sleeping, Severus set his chin on the bent arms, the text before him, his own journal besides that, open wide. Yellowing pages, black text, the possible "artistic and meaningful" comparison's Dumbledore would have quipped at him about him, those open texts, and his half shut eyes was redundant beyond extreme.

It also would have been rounded out with a well meant attempt to coax the Potion Master to slumber.

So, in the name of spite, and petty little things, he didn't indulge.

Merely listened with eyes half open to the thumb of cause and clause, letting the familiar soft sounds of pages turning and arms ticking as they went on with their doldrums rotations lull him to sleeps edge.

But never over, the boundary of Morpheus' domain was taboo. Even as the clock's hands clicked from "past bedtime" to "you should be thinking about breakfast". Once upon a time the clock would have said those words aloud, Flitwick had given him a clock that had done so, the voice had been prim, proper, and possible Poppy's with a touch of Voice Distorter Charm to protect the medi-Witch from Severus' inevitable wraith.

Suffice to say, the voice was muted. One moment of spite, an accidental unforgivable, and an impact with the wall and the clock was mercifully muffled. Still, he couldn't help but glower at the device. Irritation at the snarky appliance made him lift his gaze from the pages, and not even hunger had caused him to do so.

As if fearing his wraith the scolding words, those that took the place of numbers on the route of the Muggle clock's gyration, squished down into fonts so small the teacher could not decipher them. In its attempt to brace for another blast of malicious magic this thing had become perfectly illegible.

Considering he was a teacher doomed to read and mark essays for most of the year every year… that was impressive.

He set his pen aside, sliding it into the ink well and lifted his wand in wet, sweat slicked fingers, Severus glowered at the cringing face of the clock. Not breaking contact with the round, glassy, façade he growled.

"The time. By the numbers if you will."

With a rather contrite "tick" the words became numerals, he scowled at the miniscule numbers, and they swelled to full readability before "tick" became "tock".

Leaning forward, squinting, he threw his wand on his desk with a growl.

_Five in the morning! Bloody hell!_

He checked the words with monumental effort, stiffened at the soft sound that heralded his every morning. Bone against earth, against familiar stone, dainty in timing, delicate in form. The click of hooves scrapping across of stone caused his scowl to twist into a blank expression. The soft sound emanated form a room most often left unused, a moment, a huff, then above and behind, spilled familiar silver light.

"I'm an adult you know, not a child." Snape whispered, more than aware that the light was near, so close its source's breathe stirred a few lank locks about his neck. "I hardly need a wakeup call, unless you and _that_," a glower towards the clock, with only a ghost of old venom in attendance graced his face. "are conspiring against me."

With a soft tick the numbers squished into illegibility again, the face blanked, as if prepared for a bout of Crucio or worse.

Behind, above, she laughed. Not in her voice, merely in the voice circumstance had given her, but the sound was sweet enough, too deep to be perfect, but he would… overlook that for now. She bent, lips pressed against the nape of his neck, an idle nuzzle that caused his lips to quirk just so.

He sighed, surrendering for now.

"Good morning to you too. But be warned, I'm without coffee."

Unspoken, but understood between the two of them, was the silent _and without sleep._

She snorted, as what was unsaid and said. As he was, she too was bound by the... familiarity of it all. In the name of ritual she set her chin upon his shoulder, muzzle brushing against his cheek just so. With a gesture born of familiarity, enforced by nearly daily repetition, he reached up.

And unlike most of the world, she did not flinch from his touch.

Twining silver illumination, spiritual mist, and soft short fur between his fingers, he teased the span between the doe's ears. She sighed, lost in the bliss of the moment.

"You've been gone all night again." No guilty whicker met his accusation, but then she was rarely bothered by such paltry things as guilt. "Been in the sugar again, have we?"

A sweet snort caused half his face to twitch, could she she surely would have been smiling.

So, because she couldn't he did or her.

"When I find your… Saint Frances… do know he.. or she… and I will be speaking most firmly about quantity control."

With a whine of protest, a click of hooves, she whirled about, slipping out of his study and back to the familiar folds of canvas and paint. Without looking, for this was part of the Monday morning ritual, he spelled ink dry, closed books, rolled scrolls, and every hint of his nightlong labors was neatly tucked about in the bookshelves and those accommodating nooks and crannies he'd built into the desk and about the room. Pulling a pile of unmarked papers from their proper cubby, he further hid his trail, scattering the first and second years efforts attempts about literature about with the care they'd made towards his classes.

Which was, in truth, none at all.

A noise, a whine from behind, caused him to turn about in his chair. Thus breaking off their ritual. That part where she'd watch him a little then pad off to do whatever it was doe did whilst lost amongst the lines of paint and foreshadow.

She was staring, not at him, but the pages. At the one paper that hung over the table's edge, precarious, nearly falling. Certainly failed though, his hand, a garish "T" scarred its fore, a scathing comment about legibility.

The only part of the text that he'd been able to decipher was the name, a Mr. Harry Potter, he sneered at the reminder, reached, but was too slow. Sliding through the air, it ghosted across stone, with a skip and tumble it fumbled towards the fireplace, only, just barely, stopped by the grate.

"Stupid brat, even when he's not here he's…" Stumbling to his feet, assaulted by the prick and tingle of poor circulation, Severus staggered to the gate, cursing all the while. "...causing me trouble, always…"

Another whine, a huff really, and the click of hooves across canvas and she was gone. Pulling the page, slightly singed as were his hands from coming too close to the grate, Snape snarled, whipped about at where the last accusatory sound had formed, scathing words for _her_ teasing the tip of his tongue. He blinked black eyes wide, their depths laid bare for one moment's shock.

She was gone, had left him. His hands clenched, as did his jaw. The paper crumpled in the onslaught, then fell smolder, smoking, ashes dusted the floor. Then were kicked away under the force of a black book, before they truly had time to truly gather.


End file.
